feudal

The word feudal does not appear in Domesday Book, or indeed in any medieval source. Even the word fief,
from which feudal and feudalism are ultimately derived, does not have
its classical feudal meaning in Domesday. Feudal and feudalism are terms
coined by later ages to describe aspects of a past society. Both terms
are used with a wide variety of meanings, so wide, it is sometimes
claimed, as to make them meaningless and a obstacle rather than an aid
to understanding.

However, in the particular circumstances of the Norman Conquest, one
strand of meaning has some validity. 'Feudal' meaning a 'hierarchy of
property rights' is well-attested in Domesday Book. During the twenty
years after the Conquest, William the Conqueror redistributed the bulk
of the land in lay hands among his magnates, or tenants-in-chiefas
they are conventionally known. They rewarded their followers, many of
whom redistributed part of their gains among their own dependants; every
landowner knew from whom he had received his land and to whom he owed
the service for that land. The hierarchy created by this process of subinfeudationis
emphasised by the structure of Domesday Book which, for this reason,
has sometimes been called 'a blueprint for feudalism'. For a few
generations, feudalism in this sense had some reality. The Latin kingdom
of Jerusalem was feudal in the same sense, and for the same reason.

On fiefs and feudalism, see Sir Fredrick Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The history of English law before the time of Edward I (second edition, 1898); and Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and vassals: the medieval evidence reinterpreted (1994); on military quotas, J.H. Round, Feudal England (1895); and John Gillingham, 'The introduction of knight service into England', Anglo-Norman Studies, vol. 4 (1982), pages 53-64; 181-87.